


Alchemy

by mindbending



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Mob, Getting Together, Identity Porn, M/M, Organized Crime, Pining, Secret Identity, Tea, Tea shop AU, a film noir parody starring zuko as both the ingenue and the femme fatale, but the canon countries are now rival mobs, please respect his wishes, sokka has a trillion brain cells but has elected to use none of them, zuko's still a firebender and toph's still an earthbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:34:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25233991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindbending/pseuds/mindbending
Summary: Sokka (a.k.a the Silent Knight, a.k.a. the sharpest detective in Caldera City) has three cases weighing on his mind.1.) Zuko, son of the mob boss Ozai, has gone missing under sinister circumstances.2.) Lee, a teahouse waiter with the face of an angel, wears a scar of mysterious origins.3.) The Blue Spirit, a lithe and enigmatic cat burglar, keeps stealing into the Fire Nation’s storehouses (not to mention Sokka’s dreams).Sokka sighs and takes a swig from his special bottle. It’s hard solving threecompletely unrelatedmysteries at the same time...
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Sokka
Comments: 574
Kudos: 1987
Collections: AtLA <10k fics to read





	1. Chapter 1

In the darkness a man stands alone, leaning against a grimy alley wall. The pavement glitters from the rain earlier, and his breath hangs in puffs in the chilly night air. He chucks a glance over his shoulder and then pops his coat collar up against the cold wind and the cold, hard world.

It immediately flops down again.

Under his breath, Sokka curses the spineless flap of fabric. It’s not that he’s cold- he grew up in the South Pole, for La’s sake, a little Caldera breeze can’t do more than tickle. But next time his baby sister visits, he might ask her to teach him about starch so he can keep the collar standing up like he wants. It’s a matter of _aesthetics._

_Splash!_

Footsteps strike a puddle, and a loud, high-pitched curse floats into the night sky. For a moment Sokka reaches into his long black trench coat, brushing his fingers against the armory of fifteen distinct weapons tied snugly to his chest, because if he’s about to come face-to-face with the Fire Nation Princess then dammit, he’ll at least go down with a boomerang. But a different figure appears at the mouth of the alleyway, a smaller black outline. Sokka skips the weapons and closes his fist around a bottle of amber liquor instead, and he pulls it out and takes a long, dramatic sip-

And chokes, throat burning as his drink goes down the wrong way. He doubles over with a hacking cough.

When he straightens up again, his voice comes out in a strangled squawk. “You’re the ‘Blind Bandit’?”

“That’s me.”

“I’m the Silent Knight.”

“Silent,” she drawls. “Right. Totally accurate.”

He nearly sputters that it’s not his fault, _anyone_ can choke and one incident does not invalidate his entire alias, but she strides up to him, puts both hands on her hips and plants both bare feet on the cobblestones like she’s stone herself.

“A little birdy told me you’re smarter than you act.”

“Hey! I mean, I am, but-”

“And that you don’t work with the Fire Nation.”

Sokka swallows hard, because he’s never heard of the Blind Bandit before the note today, because this could be a trap and the Princess’s lightning could be waiting just around the corner. Still, he inhales deeply and answers, “Never.”

Her mouth quirks. “Smart. For a second there, I thought you were going to lie.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“I hear,” the Bandit replies, “that if I want answers about the Fire Nation, I’ve gotta come to you.”

Sokka pulls himself up and preens. “I’m the best detective in Caldera.”

“I don’t know about that, but at least you’re the cheapest.” Before he can protest she adds, “And I’ve got a case that’s right up your alley.”

“Literally,” he quips. “Because you’re here and you came right up my alley. Get it?”

She scowls at him for several seconds. “You’re gonna give me a ten-percent discount, as payback for inflicting that pun.”

“Aw, come on-”

“There’s been stuff going missing from Ozai’s warehouses.” The Bandit barrels over him. “You’re going to tell me whose skull I need to bash in to stop it.”

Sokka frowns, because he doesn’t do business with the Fire Nation, and why would anyone else _care_ if Ozai can’t keep hold of his own ill-gotten loot? But this Bandit’s made it several minutes without threatening to bash in _Sokka’s_ skull, so she’s not acting like a normal Fire Nation operator-

“I’m not Fire Nation,” she says on cue. “I’m a bandit, it’s in the name. My deal is I steal the Fire Nation’s stuff.”

“So you’re mad someone’s stealing Ozai’s stolen stuff, because you wanted to steal it yourself?” 

She grins at him, teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “You got it.”

Sokka snorts. “I still need details. And time to verify your story. And an official agreement on price, _without any discounts.”_

“You’re lucky you still have all your teeth after that alley joke!”

Groaning, Sokka takes another lengthy swig from his bottle.

/

The next morning, Sokka toes off his boots and swings his legs up onto a plump cushion. He plucks a new scroll from the pile of reading material he’s dumped on the table and starts to read it, all the while sipping a refined cup of warm hibiscus tea.

“Studying again?”

Startled, Sokka jerks his hand. His tea wobbles over the rim, hurtling down, certain to drop on his parchment if it isn’t pulled aside at the last possible second. But it is, and so the drops plunk down safely on wood.

“Wow,” Sokka breathes, “you’ve got better reflexes than a cheetah-shrew.”

Sokka gapes up at his savior. Lee. A literal angel caught most wrongly in Caldera City’s hellpit, with delicate features and eyes of gold and ink-black locks swept under a misty lace hairnet. 

Sokka gapes. This time he’s even got a _reason._

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Lee chuckles awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “It’s just...all the wafers I bake.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Lee stammers. “Uh. You have to snatch them out of the oven just right or they burn. Lots of high-stakes reflex practice.”

A slow blush suffuses Lee’s skin, creeping up his throat.

“Yeah,” Sokka says with a nod, “I totally feel that.”

(He does not feel that, but then again he’s never baked a cookie in his life.)

Lee glances down at the scroll. “You’re reading about...Caldera’s sewer system?”

“I am. I dabble in civil engineering, this is strictly recreational reading.”

(He does actually dabble in civil engineering, in between the airship design and the swordmaking and the locksmithing, but that’s not why he’s pulled this scroll. Sokka gazes up at Lee and lies through his teeth and feels his own heart break a little at the deception.)

Then Sokka’s heart explodes a lot, because Lee grants him a _smile._ “You have wide-ranging interests.”

“I contain multitudes.”

For a moment, Lee’s smile seems to twitch into a smirk. But then he hands the scroll back and strolls away, and Sokka’s positive he imagined it.

The Jasmine Dragon is a humble tea shop. It’s clean and comfortable, with well-filled cushions and an extensive menu of teas and the ever-present smell of baking cookies, but it’s not nearly as snobbish as other, more expensive shops in Caldera.

The Jasmine Dragon is neutral territory, a lone island of peace within a raging war. It’s the only place where the Fire Nation never dares spill a drop of blood. The owner Iroh- once a general in the mob war, once superior even to Ozai- has made clear that if anyone breaks the truce in his shop he will resort to one of two punishments:

  1. He will revoke the agreement by which his baby brother Ozai gets to rule the Fire Nation, reclaiming his birthright and his seat on the throne.
  2. He will stop making his secret-recipe lavender-ginger cookies with the crumble on top.



Either penalty would tear the city apart. Thus there is no bloodshed in the Jasmine Dragon.

If asked, Sokka would tell anyone else that he spends his days at the Jasmine Dragon for the strategic benefits. Most Fire Nation factions come through the door for a cup of calming chamomile tea (by Sokka’s analysis, Iroh’s new sleepytime blend single-handedly reduced city crime rates by 3%), and Sokka’s taught himself enough of their codes and customs to effectively eavesdrop. He gathers almost as much intelligence on his cozy bench as he would in any warehouse or alleyway, and he can sip tea while swaddled in a fleece sweater, without any fear of being electrocuted to death. 

If Sokka asks _himself,_ he’d tell himself that he hangs out at the Jasmine Dragon because the tea’s phenomenal (he suspects alchemy, there’s no way ordinary chemistry could produce something so tasty) and the lavender-ginger cookies are good enough to die for (though there’s no literal dying allowed in the shop, Iroh’s very clear about that). And though you’re only supposed to get one cookie per visit, Lee bends the rules and smuggles out one new cookie with each drink Sokka orders. It’s a thoroughly forbidden operation they’ve got going, with Lee sneaking out the cookies in pockets and under napkins to shield them from Iroh’s watchful eyes. When he makes his delivery, he usually stammers out a poor excuse for giving out extras: “I shaped this one wrong” or “we made too many batches” or “they were getting cold, and it’s a shame to not eat them fresh.”

But if Sokka’s brutally honest, the way he has to be at the end of too many investigations, he’d admit he stays for a waiter, a young man who stammers and blushes and always gets Sokka’s orders right no matter how many modifications he makes _._ A young, sweet man whose only crime in this sin-infested city is that he steals his own shop’s cookies-

“Don’t worry,” Lee mutters, passing Sokka _two_ cookies with his afternoon ginseng. “I always pay the shop back for extra food.”

_So he’s not even stealing._

Their eyes meet, and both of them stutter like they’re about to say something more. Sokka wants _so much more_ of Lee. But he’s sitting by a stack of scrolls on Ozai’s machinations, on the design of Ozai’s warehouses and the scheduling of his deliveries, and he has to wear fifteen weapons even in this tea shop, and Lee is pure and innocent and far above all the crime. Sokka cannot taint him. If he dares, if he drags Lee down into the Caldera underworld, if Lee gets _hurt_ _because of him,_ Sokka would never forgive himself.

The real reason he loves the Jasmine Dragon is terrifyingly simple.

Lee.

/

Sokka makes another trip to the library, exchanging the day’s scrolls for a whole new pile. He’s already verified the Blind Bandit’s real identity: she’s Toph Beifong, the daughter of two hoity-toity accountants from the Gaoling Gang. The Gang considers the Fire Nation to be their main rival, and she seems eager to establish a name for herself separate from her family. It’s why she’s temporarily relocated to Caldera, directly and brazenly stealing off the Fire Nation in their own backyard.

(Sokka’s not sure how she’s breaking into Ozai’s warehouses, much less how she hasn’t died yet, but that’s not the point. What matters to him is she’s definitely _not_ Fire Nation.)

Furthermore, by conducting a detailed comparison between all the blueprints of every warehouse that, according to the Blind Bandit, has been raided even before she’s gotten there, Sokka has identified one major similarity. They all have multiple routes inside. Only one official front door of course, but there are also ventilation shafts and fire escapes and mail chutes to be considered.

Not to mention the sewer system.

Toph sweeps all her target warehouses regularly, pilfering anything small but shiny. But whoever her rival is, they only go for the _shiniest_ things, the priceless antique vases and stolen jewels, leaving only empty boxes by the time the Bandit gets there. It’s like they know where the good stuff is in advance.

Whoever they are, they seem to have better intel than the Blind Bandit or even Sokka, the Silent Knight. This burglar’s hit every major faction within the Fire Nation. Sokka’s first guess is it’s intra-mob sabotage, because one of the factions could be targeting the others while just _pretending_ to have its own stuff stolen to clear itself of suspicion. 

Alternatively, the robber’s against the entire Fire Nation, yet intimately connected to it.

It’s a mystery worthy of the best detective in Caldera City, and once he’s holed up in his apartment Sokka kneels to open his foolproof safe (his design, though the Mechanist smoothed out the details and made the final product) and insert a new folder still labeled “Unnamed,” but dedicated to this job. Every job gets its own folder, even the cold cases that haven’t advanced in all three years of his career.

(Deep in the helter-skelter stack, there’s a folder with Lee’s name on it, opened in honor of the burn scar that crosses his pale face. Lee’s only been in Caldera for two years and the scar was old when Sokka first met him, so with any luck it was just an accident, not even remotely related to the Fire Nation or any other brand of raving firebender. But Sokka has a folder ready, just in case.)

Sokka pops the safe open. Inside teeters a leaning tower of folders, and as he tries to wedge this new one in alphabetically, he jostles the entire structure. 

One file slides out of the safe, falling open at his feet, freezing him. It’s his first case. Not alphabetically, but chronologically, and more importantly it’s the first in his heart.

It’s the coldest case he’s got. A Missing Person case that nobody else in the city seems to care about.

See, Fire Boss Ozai’s not kind to “the family.” He manipulates every branch of the Fire Nation with ruthless precision, pitting factions against each other to keep everyone below him small, but at least he smiles and preserves the pretense of civility. But he looks downright _generous_ with the family, compared to how he treats his literal blood relatives.

Sokka picks up the file, scrawled with the now-forgotten name of a missing Fire Nation prince. Optimistically, said prince was knocked off by the Gaoling Gang or some other rival organization. But Ozai has the entire city in his fist, and he didn’t order a single search party when his son disappeared six years back, and Sokka has another guess about what exactly went down.

This file- full of old clippings and rumors and poorly rendered sketches of how the young prince looked half a decade back- records how Sokka fell into detective work in the first place. It’s why he chases down other families’ lost children. It’s why it doesn’t matter how much you pay him, he won’t work with the Fire Nation. 

Gently, Sokka lays the folder on his desk. He hasn’t gotten any new material to add, he knows at this point that the kid’s probably fish food, but he’ll re-read it one more time just in case. He sits down, takes a swig from his bottle, and brushes his fingers over an otherwise forgotten name. 

Zuko.

/

Sokka’s curled up with a fruity oolong and a brand-new pile of clips to dig through when his fine-tuned hearing picks up on a significant conversation, unfolding on the other side of the teahouse.

“We got hit again,” a burly enforcer growls over her favorite white peony tea. “One second, we had an old library book-” and Sokka’s eyes widen, because he’s compiled the defining dictionary for translating Fire Nation mobspeak (the _defining dictionary,_ get it?), and the “old library book” is surely a decades-old parchment leading to the Sun Gang’s buried treasure- “and then bam, the patrol turns the corner again and it’s nowhere to be found.”

“Agh,” grunts the mobster beside her, spraying lavender-ginger cookie crumbs. “How the hell are they pulling it off?”

Infiltration via vents and pipes, obviously, but Sokka keeps this fact to himself.

“No clue,” she says. “I didn’t even see their shadow. But...I heard Zhao’s team calls ‘em the ‘Blue Spirit.’”

“‘Cause they move fast as a ghost and a sighting’s rarer than a blue moon?”

“‘Cause they’re wearing half-baked Dark Water Spirit cosplay. You know, that character from _Love Amongst the Dragons?_ I hear they’re running around in a knock-off mask-”

Sokka clings to every word, scrawling it in handwriting so lousy it basically functions as a secret code, until he’s distracted by a sudden _crash._ Lee stands nearby, bright red and surrounded by broken pieces of a plate he just dropped, and Sokka abandons the eavesdropping to come to his rescue.

But even as he knocks his head into Lee’s as they both bend down at just the same moment, Sokka gloats. At least he’s got a name for his new folder.

The Blue Spirit.


	2. Chapter 2

Sokka crouches in the shadows of a monochrome world. With a lockpicking gadget he engineered himself, he’s broken into one of Ozai’s main warehouses, and now he prowls the building, wearing gloves and his trusty trench coat, waiting. This building once belonged to a textile factory, but it hasn’t seen honest use since Ozai blackmailed the old owner into selling. There is no light except from a waning moon, its beams diffracted by skylights of pebbled glass.

Sokka’s alone in a lightless, colorless world, just black and white and a million shades of grey. 

The warehouse is filled with barrels and chests, organized with an intricate logic Sokka would need a year in full daylight to detangle. He darts about from one pool of darkness to another, peeking into containers wherever he can. He finds all manner of contraband- precious metals, trunkfuls of illegal drugs, poached animal horns.

(Most intriguingly, he stumbles on several barrels full of pistacadamia nuts, a.k.a. Sokka’s favorite snack if you ignore meat and sugar, a.k.a. a tragically banned substance in Caldera City due to widespread allergy concerns. Sokka nearly steals a handful before recalling he’s here to _catch_ a thief, not become one.)

He roams, and he memorizes the layout to the best of his ability, and he appraises objects as he finds them. There’s one treasure he cares about more than the rest, newly delivered. It’s the reason he’s here.

He finds it near the warehouse’s center in a carved wooden box, locked tight and tied with an elaborate rope knot. Guided by years of naval training, Sokka easily undoes the knot, and his custom lockpicker cracks the remaining defenses. Inside he finds exactly what he expected: a first-edition firebending manuscript, illuminated with gold. The gilding alone makes it worth as much as a lifetime supply of Iroh’s cookies.

(By market rates, anyway. As a non-bending gastronome, Sokka’d take the cookies any day.)

He carefully places the book back in its box, shuts the lock and re-ties the knot, and he continues his patrol.

When he completes the circuit, the rope lies puddled on the ground, and the lock has been cleaved in two. The box has been flung open. The book is gone.

Once Sokka manages to un-drop his jaw, he kneels down, clicks on a custom penlight and starts dusting for fingerprints.

/

Sokka doesn’t call himself the best detective in Caldera City for nothing. He’s invented several subfields in forensic science. It’s why he knows how to sprinkle powdered metal on wood and press down slips of paper, copying the last set of fingerprints. It’s how he can make deductions from brushing his fingers across the scratches in the box and arranging the now-torn coils of rope back into their original knot.

It’s why he doesn’t scream like a baby when the Blind Bandit sneaks up on him two hours later. 

(He only lets out a little yelp. It doesn’t count.)

She snickers. “Hey, Silent Knight. Whatcha doing here?”

“The Blue Spirit was just here.”

She curses loudly, the sound ricocheting around the metal warehouse.

“Keep it down, there could be people!”

“First of all, Ozai’s patrols aren’t here right now; he’s got a whole damn complex to guard. Second of all, _you_ are in no position to lecture me on being aware of my surroundings.”

He scowls.

“I heard the goons talking about the firebending book,” she mutters. “Of _course_ Blue Spit ran off with it first.”

“Blue _Spirit.”_

“I know what I said.”

“...I don’t know how they got in,” Sokka confesses. “Could be the vents, but it could be the gutters or maybe even the windows if they’re good enough at parkour. Any chance you wanna tell me how _you_ got in?”

“No way in hell. You got anything else on ‘em?”

“I’ve got plenty,” he murmurs, squinting at the rope. “They got right through the lock and the rope with two cuts. That means they carry bladed weaponry, and they’re good with it. Exceptionally precise. And they pulled this off without me seeing or hearing a thing.”

“Is that _hard?”_ she deadpans.

Sokka shoots her a glare, and she grins back even though she can’t see it. 

“I’ll check the prints against the police registry,” he continues, “but for now we can narrow them down just by weapon type. The width of the gouges suggests a thicker blade- more sword, less stiletto knife. Looks like a smooth edge, not serrated, but the directionality is weird. There’s a natural curve to the slashes, but it goes one way on the box and the other way on the rope.”

“So they switched directions. Big deal.”

“It might be,” Sokka protests. “Why’d they reverse directions? Hand injury? Drama?”

“I’m betting on drama.”

Obviously he can’t discount the allure of drama, if the Blue Spirit really does run around in knock-off theater cosplay, but Sokka can’t help feeling there’s something more.

“I bet they have two weapons,” he breathes, fists closing as he visualizes the hilts in his own hands. “Two matching blades, curving different directions. Probably one in each hand.”

“So they’re _all_ about the drama, then.”

“So,” Sokka says, “you’re looking at a well-informed dual-wielding gymnast. Probably not a bender, because that’d just be unfair.”

“Oh, this is going to be _fun.”_

She cracks her knuckles. In the cold gaze of moonlight, Sokka shivers.

/

Sokka gets out well before sunrise, leaving the box just the way it was. He sleeps past noon. When he manages to drag himself out of his excessively comfortable bed, he makes a beeline for the Jasmine Dragon. In one pocket he’s got an empty piece of parchment. In the other, he’s got a copy of the Blue Spirit’s fingerprints. The original’s in his safe, tucked safely in its case file.

He intends to check the police’s fingerprint registry, but their records are sorted by biological characteristics. That means Sokka has to analyze the Blue Spirit’s prints himself before he can ask about matches. It’s a difficult task, so he holes up in a booth in the tea shop’s backroom, keeping his back towards the wall, glowering at anyone who might dare peek at his work. 

He lets down his defenses only for Lee, who approaches with regular refills and cookies. 

After bending down to pour his third cup of tea, Lee pauses, looking quizzically at the set of ten smudges. “Are those...fingerprints?”

“Yeah,” Sokka says.

“And _why_ are you studying fingerprints?”

Sokka is a master of alibis and aliases and alternative explanations. Tragically, the only one he can think of in the moment is, “I’m getting into palmistry!”

Lee’s eyebrow jumps. “What’s the reading say?”

In bewilderment, Sokka stares down at the fingerprints. Katara talked his ear off about palm readings for months a while back, no matter how many times he explained that palmistry was a load of absolute nonsense. He promised himself that he’d wipe all her blathering from his head immediately to make way for more important facts, like the ideal spice blends for roasting each of his fifteen favorite meats.

Nonetheless, as he looks down at the set of ten prints, he realizes he remembers a _lot._

“Well,” he muses, “they haven’t gotten any loops. That’s the most common pattern in fingerprints, statistically speaking, so even from the first glance they’re unusual.”

He’d noticed this even before bringing the mumbo-jumbo into it. It’s rare to see a complete lack of loops, and it’ll drastically narrow the scope of the registry search.

“What you see instead is the dominance of whorls, see, these closed circles with all the rings?” When he lifts up the prints, Lee scrutinizes them and then nods in understanding. “So the whorls mean they’re intense. Really focused, exceptionally skilled. But they’re also closed off- fiercely independent. Maybe to the point of being secretive.”

“Wow, that’s pretty interesting.”

Sokka wants to curl up in Lee’s praise like a cat in sun, and so, even though palmistry’s got more lies to tell than Ozai in court, he keeps going. “Then there’s the arches. That means they’ve got a stable core under all the secrets. Common sense, a knack for handling tough situations, a solid work ethic.”

Sokka doesn’t believe in palmistry. But it’s still a weirdly accurate match to the psychological profile he’d already drawn up for the Blue Spirit.

“They sound great,” Lee remarks.

“Yeah,” Sokka agrees. “But it’s not all smooth sailing. Arches mean they’re stubborn, probably slow to change. And then that weird raised arch throws another wrench into things.” He taps one stand-out fingerprint, its lines shaped oddly like the inside of a volcano, with layers of rock and magma. “They’ve got a lot of feelings under everything, and a serious set of principles. They might also be a bit, um, anxious? Maybe awkward around people?”

Lee snorts. “Do you know them really well?”

Sokka briefly contemplates his answer. “Not as well as I’d like to.”

He 110% does not believe in palmistry. But still Sokka wants to know more about Lee, even if all he’ll discover is the way Lee’s hand feels in his. So he blurts, “Do you want a reading?”

Lee’s good eye widens. “I gotta give...Iroh the pot back, but maybe right after that?”

“Sure!”

Lee disappears into the kitchen. It takes him several minutes to return, scrutinizing his own fingertips with the strangest expression on his face.

“Actually,” he mutters, “I decided to keep my future a mystery. If you don’t mind.”

Sokka keeps up his smile, despite his disappointment. “No, sure, I get that.”

“For what it’s worth,” he adds, halting, “you’re good at this. If you got all that from just ten prints, you’re really, _really_ good.”

After a moment, Lee flees.

/

The police registry’s never seen the Spirit’s prints before.


	3. Chapter 3

Though a cold front sweeps through the city, Caldera’s alight with hot new gossip. The Fire Nation got three big deliveries today. 

The Blind Bandit means to go for the first, a stone trunk that’s crammed full of cash. Sokka has no clue how she’s going to move it, but she reminds him that’s not the mystery she’s paying him to solve. 

He lets her go alone because he suspects (not because of the palm reading, _definitely not_ because of the palm reading) that the Blue Spirit will go for one of the other targets. The other trophies are better-guarded and therefore more challenging to grab, and they’re a bit more _niche_ as plunder goes. One’s a set of rare poisons and their antidotes. The other, currently held in Zhao’s stronghold, is a box of jewels, looted straight from the mines of an Earth Kingdom gang. Sokka doesn’t want to guess how many soldiers Ozai sacrificed for _that._

Personally, Sokka would go for the poisons, though they’d fetch a little less on the open market. As far as he can tell, the Blue Spirit isn’t fencing their wares anywhere nearby, so they might not be optimizing for profit. Throw in the fact that the poisons are more practical for personal use and that they’re not right in the center of a faction’s territory, and the Blue Spirit would have to be _insane_ to prefer the jewels.

But two hours into a quiet stakeout with a clear line of sight to the poisons, Sokka wavers. He checks his weapons, takes a swig from his flask, and relocates to the perimeter of Zhao’s slice of the city.

It’s chaos. All the fires are lit, and Sokka can hear the hollering from the main fortress.

“You just had them!”

“The Spirit jumped twenty feet, we can’t follow-”

“You can’t,” booms Zhao’s distinctive roar, “if you don’t try!”

Sokka flinches as Zhao pushes one of his soldiers right off a parapet. He can’t bring himself to look right back, so he surveys the surrounding skyline instead-

There. 

In a monochrome world, there’s a flicker of blue. 

Balanced on a rooftop half a mile from Zhao’s fortress stands the Blue Spirit. They’re slender, their figure clad entirely in clinging black but for their blue theater mask. Behind them a long sheet of black hair shimmers freely in the breeze, swept up in a high ponytail. If Sokka squints, he can make out a box of jewels under one arm and the outline of dual dao broadswords, strapped to their back.

(The mobster at the Jasmine Dragon slandered them horribly, because that’s definitely a _genuine_ Dark Water Spirit mask from a high-end theatrical production.)

A heartbeat later, the Blue Spirit elegantly backflips off the roof, stealing both the jewels and the breath from Sokka’s lungs.

/

“Is that a yellow diamond?”

Sokka’s head snaps up, because a teahouse customer’s just wrapped his fingers around Lee’s wrist and _growled_ at him. With one quick glance, Sokka recognizes him as one of Zhao’s thugs.

“No,” Lee replies with an unfamiliar edge in his voice. “It’s just topaz.”

He spins away, breaking free with surprising agility, and Sokka spots what they’re talking about. Lee’s got a little yellow gemstone sparkling around his neck, swinging on a delicate golden chain and peeking out from under the laces of his tunic.

It kind of _does_ look like a yellow diamond, at first glance. But Sokka gives up on identification, distracted by the dreamy observation that it really brings out the gold in Lee’s eyes.

/

According to teahouse gossip, Zhao’s just gotten his grubby hands on a genuine Piandao sword. The Blind Bandit’s not interested (“it’s just a chunk of metal, and not even _fancy_ metal; I’ll stick to cash for tonight”), but perhaps the Blue Spirit is.

Sokka’s interested too, both because he might catch another glimpse of the Spirit and because he’s maybe the tiniest bit of a Piandao fanboy. Thankfully this treasure’s in a normal warehouse, not Zhao’s main stronghold, and Sokka breaks in easily.

He finds the sword without much trouble, in a long velvet-lined case lying on an otherwise unguarded table. After glancing around to confirm he’s alone, he flicks the box open, lifts up the blade, and revels in the genius of a master’s craftsmanship. Though the moonlight reveals a little nick in the steel, Sokka shrugs. It must be one of Piandao’s earlier works.

He peers a little closer at the signature, but he can’t make it out in such low light. So he takes a walk towards a window, brandishing the sword about a little bit. It feels stubborn and unwieldy, and he wonders whether the point of balance is really supposed to be so close to the hilt-

_Snap! Crackle! Pop!_

Caught up in the glory of a new sword, Sokka steps on a bunch of pistacadamia nut shells. He springs back with a violent curse.

On the one hand, Sokka’s pretty sure the nut shells weren’t a well-laid trap, just debris from a couple of mobsters who snacked on their own loot and were messy about it.

On the other hand, there’s a blade at his throat. 

The Blue Spirit appears before him, one broadsword’s tip brushing his neck.

Sokka narrows his eyes. “Blue Spirit. I’m glad to finally meet you. I’m...the Silent Knight.”

The Spirit takes that in. Looks down at the cracked nut shells. Looks back up Sokka.

They have impeccable comic timing too, Sokka realizes. It’s really _not fair._

He charges on anyway: “You’ve screwed with my client, so now you’re going to answer a couple questions for me. Either we can do this the easy way, and you take off that mask and start talking...”

He rapidly spins out from under the blade, whirling about so he’s _behind_ the Spirit. He keeps the sword in one hand and throws his boomerang with the other, though the Spirit dodges it on its way out.

“Or,” Sokka finishes, “we can do this the hard way.”

The boomerang’s _supposed_ to come back and bop the Spirit on the head, the perfect punctuation to conclude his dramatic speech. Unfortunately, the Spirit leans to the side just as it whooshes back, as if they knew it was coming.

(Which is weird, because they don’t _do_ boomerangs up here. Nobody in Caldera should know about that particular trick of Sokka’s, unless customers overheard that one time he was telling Lee about his boomerang in the Jasmine Dragon, when he was bragging about his wide range of outdoor hobbies…)

Sokka catches the boomerang and lifts his sword. 

“I don’t recommend the hard way,” he warns. “I know what I’m doing with a sword.”

Though the Blue Spirit starts to back away, Sokka lunges, aiming to subdue them for questioning. But they sidestep his first blow with feline grace, then another one, then a third. He can’t make contact until the Spirit outright grabs his wrist (and on some subconscious level Sokka notes they’re wearing long black gloves now, probably because of the cold front) and uses his sword to knock Sokka’s weapon from his hand-

The steel of Sokka’s sword _snaps_ at the impact. 

Sokka and the Spirit both freeze, staring at the remnants of what’s definitely not a Piandao sword. Simultaneously, they realize that it’s just a fake.

It’s bait. 

Together, they’ve stumbled into a well-laid trap.

A door creaks, and Zhao’s goons stampede in, calling for the Blue Spirit’s head. Sokka whirls around, fully prepared to stand by the Spirit and take them all down, but there’s another abrupt _crack._ The Blue Spirit whacks him on the head with the hilt of a broadsword and catches him as he falls, oddly gentle, hauling his limp body out of sight behind a shelf. The last thing Sokka hears is a metallic _shiiing_ as they draw their second sword, and then his world goes truly black.

/

Sokka wakes up the next morning in his own apartment.

The Blue Spirit must have delivered him to safety by spiriting him home _(spiriting!_ Sokka really cracks himself up sometimes). He briefly wonders how they knew where to bring him, before realizing his wallet contains an ID with his home address on it. Then he wonders how they knew to pick this address as opposed to one across town, another address printed on the impeccably forged ID for his favorite alias, Wang Fire. After a moment’s contemplation, he chalks it up to luck.

He’s lying on his tattered sofa, and the Spirit’s draped a blanket around him, even going so far as to tuck it in. His head throbs as he pushes himself up and scans the room. At first, nothing seems out of place. But when Sokka staggers over to his desk, he realizes that the “Zuko” case file he’d left out is askew, its edges entirely parallel with the sides of the desk though he’d surely left it at a 3-degree angle.

He drags himself to the Jasmine Dragon. When he catches sight of Lee, he frowns, because his favorite angel of a barista’s got shadows under his eyes too.

“You didn’t sleep well?”

“Uh. No,” Lee replies. “I was up all night studying this new tea blend. Would you like to try a cup...”

He trails off, but Sokka throws him his most reassuring, dazzling smile. “That sounds amazing.”

“I put in cinnamon and honey,” he adds quickly, “so it’s not too medicinal-”

“Why would it taste medicinal?” Sokka says.

“It’s…” He fidgets for a moment, tucking a stray lock of long black hair back into his hairnet. “It’s originally a headache remedy?”

Sokka’s jaw drops. “Has anyone told you you’re perfect?”

“I don’t think you know me very well,” Lee splutters before he rushes off to get a cup of his new brew.

(One cup and two cookies later, and Sokka’s head feels better than ever.)


	4. Chapter 4

Sokka sits on his apartment balcony, overlooking Caldera’s nighttime skyline, drinking all the way to the bottom of his bottle. His heart is torn like this black-and-white city before him.

For years, since the first time Lee graced the Jasmine Dragon with his presence, Sokka thought his heart lost to him. Yet he could never act on his affections. Lee is sweet and awkward and naive, he is an innocent unmarred by the endless mob violence, and Sokka could not doom him by allowing any bond deeper than the standard customer service relationship.

Then along came the Blue Spirit. They’re nimble and lithe, every motion sleek, every action intricately plotted. They’re more enmeshed in the mob war than Sokka is; going by the ambush with the sword, Zhao wants the Spirit dead.

(It’s a bit depressing: no matter how much Sokka works on his brand, nobody ever wants the _Silent Knight_ dead.)

The Blue Spirit dances through Sokka’s dreams now, stealing into his apartment, stealing his heart. 

Stealing him _from Lee._

/

On top of everything, the lost mob prince Zuko would’ve turned twenty today. Sokka bets that no one else in Caldera knows that fact. Nobody cares.

In the Jasmine Dragon, Lee nudges Sokka with a poke to the shoulder. “You okay there, buddy?”

Slowly he meets Lee’s eyes- his glorious, golden eyes, so sunny they can almost pierce the stormclouds in Sokka’s heart. He can’t find anything to say.

“I’ll get you more cookies,” Lee offers. “Uncle- Iroh made me a whole tray today. For no reason.”

The slip of the tongue barely registers through Sokka’s gloom. Long-retired from the war, Iroh’s thoroughly avuncular. Of course Lee calls him “Uncle.” On a philosophical level, you could conceive of him as _everyone’s_ uncle.

Lee silently brings out a whole platter of warm lavender-ginger cookies, and Sokka tries not to propose marriage.

/

For the first time in his reign, Ozai hits a dry spell. A band of pirates co-opted his latest shipments (idly, Sokka wonders who could have tipped them off about Ozai’s shipping routes, because surely the pirates had a partner inside Caldera), and that means no new deliveries. And though the Blind Bandit’s still going on gleeful (if less profitable) robbery sprees, there’s no sign of the Blue Spirit anymore. The city goes eerily quiet.

Until the Big Deal.

Sokka hears the first rumors in the teashop. He gets confirmation from several other sources this time (he’s learned his lesson), and he checks in with the Blind Bandit, who’s picked up on the rumors from an entirely different set of sources. Sokka’s pretty sure this deal’s actually happening. He’d bet anything the Blue Spirit’s heard about it too.

Nobody’s being precise about _what_ Ozai’s bought, but it’s a brand-new type of cargo. He’s expanding into a whole new industry, according to the stories, and he’s starting his project off with a bang. His first shipment will take up half of the massive old factory where the Blue Spirit stole that firebending book. That factory lies at the heart of an entire complex of warehouses, and Ozai’s ordered triple the usual guards to protect it.

“Whatever it is, it’s _mine,”_ the Bandit informs him with a nasty smile. “Blue Spit’s going down, once and for all.”

/

Ozai may have ordered triple the usual number of guards, but they didn’t bring triple the usual amount of brainpower. Sokka sneaks past them easily, this time avoiding the pistacadamia shells littering the floor, and meets up with the Blind Bandit inside.

“What is this stuff?” Sokka demands. “Is it worth stealing?”

They’re surrounded by hundreds of new wooden crates, arranged in clusters throughout the building.

“I...can’t tell,” she admits. “I broke into one crate in the middle, but I just felt some long cylinders. Maybe it’s drugs, or maybe it’s some kinda new toy-”

“Please stop.” Sokka slinks down one aisle, examining the different crates’ locking mechanisms. Once he finds one that looks particularly simple, he bends down and lends it all his focus, carefully cracking it with his handy lockpicker-

An unholy screech fills the warehouse. 

“You’ve messed with the wrong master thief,” the Bandit declares suddenly. “You’ve been muscling in on _my_ jobs. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to take two slabs of rock and grind you to dust, but first? I’ll let you beg for mercy.”

Sokka darts back out, drawn by the groan of metal being wrenched out of place and a loud banging. Upon turning the corner, he freezes.

The Blind Bandit’s a _metalbender._

And Sokka would need a couple years to process that fact alone because, while it does neatly explain how she’s been getting in and out of Ozai’s metal storehouses, it’s still completely _impossible._ However he has to accept it quickly and move on to the scene right in front of him.

The Blue Spirit’s been locked in place. The metal of the floor’s curled up to twist around their ankles. They’re hammering at the metal with both swords, but it doesn’t budge.

“Well?” the Bandit presses, folding her arms. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

In response, the Spirit sheathes both swords and then begins gesturing wildly. At first Sokka thinks they might be trying to punch her. Then he realizes it’s an attempt to communicate in silence, charades-style.

A doomed attempt, since she can’t see a thing.

So Sokka strolls up behind the Spirit with a casual _ahem,_ and they pause the gesticulating, instead twisting around to look at him. In one swift motion (what, did you think the Spirit had a monopoly on speed?), Sokka steals away the mask-

And reveals an all-too-familiar face, gaping back at him.

_“Lee?”_

The shock gives way to forced indignation as the Blue Spirit (Lee, obviously Lee) splutters, “I’m not ‘Lee!’ In fact, I’ve never met _anyone_ named Lee!”

The Bandit gasps. _“Zuko?”_

Lee’s head snaps back towards her. “I’m not _Zuko!”_

“You’re _totally_ Zuko,” she exclaims with a snort. “No one else could be this bad at lying.”

“Zuko?” Sokka squawks. _“Ozai’s Zuko?”_

“Yeah,” says Toph, just as Lee- the Blue Spirit- Zuko sharply says, “No!”

“Uh…”

“I’m not _Ozai’s,”_ Zuko spits. “Not after what he did.”

“What’d he do?” says the Bandit.

As the well-honed gears in Sokka’s head turn, he blends years of evidence with the man standing before him, a twenty-year-old mob prince with a scar that only one person in Caldera would dare give him. Two mysteries solve themselves at once.

“Ozai burned your face and kicked you out,” he murmurs, shaking with sudden rage. “Didn’t he?”

Swallowing hard, Zuko nods. “I told him to stop recruiting teenagers, and I paid the price.” Before Sokka can digest that, Zuko’s head swivels back in the Bandit’s direction. “Are you...Toph Beifong?”

“How do _you two_ know each other?” Sokka demands.

“Ten years ago there was a huge mob summit, when our families carved up the world,” Zuko mutters.

“More importantly,” she interrupts, pointing his way, “I destroyed Zuko at _pai sho_ the whole time _._ He kept challenging me even though I kept beating him, because I have literally _never_ met _anyone_ worse at bluffing.”

_“Hey!”_

She grins.

“What are you doing _here?”_ says Zuko.

“Stealing your dad’s stuff.”

 _“_ Yeah, but _why?”_

She unfolds three fingers. “Money, fame, and funsies.”

Scoffing, he shakes his head. “I’m going for revenge.”

“...you know what? Screwing your parents is a mission I can get behind.”

With a quiet creak, the metal around his feet recedes. He springs free.

“I didn’t _know_ you were around, Toph,” Zuko protests breathlessly. “If I did, I wouldn’t have gotten in your way, I swear.”

“We could’ve hit different spots and been causing twice the chaos!”

“Exactly!”

Sokka responds to this conversation the only way he knows how: with a long, long drink from his special flask. He chokes mid-swallow, because at exactly that second there’s a loud shout outside the warehouse.

Toph furrows her brow. “...We maybe should’ve been a bit quieter with the whole dramatic revelation thing.”

Shooting a glance at the door, Zuko sighs. “What’s my father even got in here?”

At that, Sokka’s eyes go saucer-wide, and he thrusts the mask back into Zuko’s hands. “We need to run. Right now.”

Toph snorts. “We can take them.”

“No,” Sokka says as Zuko dons the mask again. “No. We are not going to ‘take’ them, because they’re a bunch of firebenders and this warehouse is _full of black-market fireworks.”_

Toph and Zuko freeze.

“Did you not hear me?” Sokka hisses in a whisper. “If there’s a single spark, this entire warehouse will catch on fire!”

“...It’s been fun catching up, but I’m out.” Toph clicks two finger-guns at them and then disappears, the metal floor swallowing her whole.

“Do you think,” Zuko breathes, “that the fire would spread to the entire warehouse complex?”

“Yes,” Sokka exclaims. “It’d be a huge conflagration, that’s why we need to get out!”

“No. It’s why you need to get out, and I need to stay.”

“But-”

“The grate.” Zuko points to the back of the warehouse, a wild, eerie glint in his gold eyes. “That’s how I get in here, just lift the cover and follow the grate into the plumbing-”

“But-”

“Go,” he commands, regal to the bone.

Sokka has no choice but to obey.

/

After a few steps down the pipe, Sokka decides obedience is overrated and doubles back to the warehouse. Sure, the Blue Spirit is massively over-capable, but he’s also _Lee_ _and_ _Zuko,_ and Sokka’s still possessed by the old drive to rescue them _both._

It’s why Sokka runs back like a man possessed, a dagger in one hand and a boomerang in the other, diving back into the fray. There’s hollering from the front door as an army of Fire Nation mobsters crashes in. Zuko crouches unarmed, his swords sheathed behind his back, surrounded by...

Sokka blinks.

Okay, that’s definitely a trail of firecrackers, arranged across the back wall of the warehouse, heading in all directions towards various boxes of explosives. Sokka frowns, because he doubts Zuko’s packing a lighter under that skin-tight suit, so how exactly does he intend to set off the trap?

Zuko answers him by silently dropping to all fours and swinging his feet around, engulfed in an instant whirlwind of golden flame.

The world goes still as Sokka comes to three conclusions:

  1. Zuko inherited the family knack for firebending.
  2. As a master firebender, Zuko will surely survive and escape the impending blaze. 
  3. If his analysis of the building’s structural integrity is even remotely right, _Sokka’s_ the one who’s about to need rescuing.



_Pop._

_Pop._

_Pop._

Zuko’s flame skips down the lines. He turns, surveying his work proudly until he sees Sokka, still lingering within the blast zone.

_BOOM._

The windows above shatter, their pieces pitter-pattering to the floor. Then the crates and shelves spontaneously burst apart. On cue, just when Sokka expects it, the metal columns holding up the building start to buckle.

It’s the glass that gets Sokka first. He throws up his hands to defend himself, but it rains down, piercing his gloves, leaving red trails on his palms.

Zuko dives towards him, screaming.

/

“Oh, come on. Come on, you stupid ‘Silent Knight,’ you’re not supposed to _actually_ be silent-”

Sokka wakes to Toph’s griping and to Zuko’s face above him, framed by rainbows and utterly angelic.

“Sokka,” Zuko murmurs, “please come back.”

Sokka stretches a bit. He’s sore all over, and his hands feel like they’ve been ground to mincemeat, but he’s definitely awake. As the world comes back into focus, he realizes the rainbows are actually fireworks, spurting over and over into the sky from multiple directions.

“The entire complex went up in flames,” Toph says with a smirk. “Sparky, you owe me so much money, _again.”_

Zuko ignores her. So does Sokka, mostly, because his brain’s overloaded by the way that Zuko, and Lee, and the Blue Spirit are all gazing down at him.

Sokka blinks. “You saved me.”

“...Yes.”

 _“You_ saved _me.”_

“Well,” Zuko splutters, just the way Lee always did, “I couldn’t just let you _die!_ You shouldn’t even be involved with the Fire Nation, you’re too _sweet,_ you’re too _good_ for any of that-”

“Hey, lovebirds.” As Sokka gapes, Toph rudely shoves her hands down his trench coat, pulling out his special bottle. “He needs medicine, but it can’t hurt to disinfect the cuts now.”

Zuko pulls his stare away from Sokka like it’s _difficult._ Reaching out, he takes the flask of amber liquor, pops it open, and sniffs it, and Sokka flinches in anticipation-

“This isn’t alcohol.”

Sokka laughs nervously. “Of course it is-”

“No.” Zuko’s face somersaults as understanding dawns. “No, this is the venti mango green tea you always order to-go-”

“It’s for the aesthetic-”

“You order it with extra sugar!”

In his periphery, Toph facepalms, but Zuko’s indignation softens to something tolerant and resigned and _gentle._

“I was right,” Sokka murmurs. “You really are perfect.”

Then he surges up and presses their mouths together, kissing Zuko for dear life as a rainbow of fireworks bursts behind them, painting a monochrome world with color.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, when the morning sky’s still hazy with rainbow-colored smoke, Ozai hires Sokka.

Two of Ozai’s attendants personally deliver the message, elderly hunchbacked women whom Sokka thinks might still be good in a fight. They explain he’s the only detective in town Ozai truly trusts, since he has no professional connections to the Fire Nation yet and therefore won’t lie to protect any particular faction. They offer him a truly exorbitant fee. Still, he’d slam the door in their face, if not for Zuko gesturing wildly from his bedroom doorway.

“Why’d you make me take the job?” he demands afterwards.

“I didn’t want to, but we can’t let him go to a- a more expensive detective,” Zuko answers. “Someone who won’t lie about why my dad’s biggest warehouses just burned down.”

“...you have the best ideas.”

“You’ve gotta pin this on someone else, who none of us three are linked to.” Zuko runs his hands through his jet-black hair, spilling unstyled onto his shoulders. “Try framing the freedom fighters. Jet’s been trying to hit the Fire Nation for ages-”

“You don’t feel bad about framing people called ‘the freedom fighters’?”

Zuko scowls, a delightfully un-Lee-like look that sends a thrill of interest through Sokka. “Well, what do _you_ want to do?”

“What if we don’t frame anyone?” Though Zuko rolls his eyes, Sokka continues: “Maybe we can make it seem like it’s an accident. Just a really sad series of events.”

“I guess if you’re sufficiently specific, even stupid lies sound real. That’s how Azula manages it.”

Sokka shudders. “You know, if it’s a really _really_ stupid lie, then he’ll have to believe it’s real, because there’s no way anyone would purposefully _choose_ it as a lie.”

“...Uh. Sure.”

So Sokka spends the entire day at the Jasmine Dragon, piecing together a story so absurd that Ozai will have no _choice_ but to buy it. He tells it to Zuko, who pushes a cookie in his mouth halfway through to make him stop. He tells it to Toph, who offers to coach him on a sincere delivery once she’s stopped laughing.

He tells it to Ozai. He explains in elaborate detail how the Fire Nation’s low-level soldiers enjoy pilfering pistacadamia nuts when on patrol, and how they must have left one such barrel of nuts a sliver open after stealing from it. He proves with multiple chemical formulas that pistacadamia nuts contain little moisture but a great deal of flammable oil. He pulls out a weather chart and a calendar marking the phases of the moon, proving that the full moon’s beams fell clearly on Caldera on the night of the fire. And with a sample of the same pebbled glass that, according to city records, was used in the old factory skylights, he demonstrates how the shapely bubbles have the potential to focus light.

In short, the moonbeams must have been sharpened to a deadly point by the skylights, falling right on an open barrel of nuts and triggering spontaneous pistacadamia combustion.

(Zuko insists his father will need _someone_ to blame. Therefore Sokka adds with just the slightest spite that, if Ozai wonders why the moon would set _his stuff specifically_ on fire, he should look to the Fire Nation looters who recently plundered a temple to Tui in waterbending territory.)

Ozai follows the entire story with an increasingly baffled expression. At the end, he dismisses Sokka without questions, presumably because he doesn’t know what he could even ask. 

The Silent Knight wins _again._ Obviously.

(That’s why for today they avoid using plan B, a.k.a. Zuko waiting in the vents above, armed to the teeth and ready to blow Ozai’s fortress to bits.)

/

Sokka hires Toph.

She barges into Zuko’s life whenever he’s not posing as Lee, and that means she barges into Sokka’s life too, and every time she demands compensation for “her stuff,” a.k.a all the future loot she would’ve stolen from Ozai if Zuko hadn’t blown it up first. Eventually, Zuko pays her off by turning over almost everything he stole from his dad before, since he stashed it all around the Jasmine Dragon and never fenced any of it. It was always about honor for him, not money. 

(He keeps only a yellow diamond necklace for himself, and a ring of glittering sapphire for Sokka.)

Afterwards, she shows up regularly to complain that burglary’s gotten way harder. Though the Blue Spirit seems to be retired for now, Ozai’s tightened up all his security, and it’s just not the _same,_ and _someone_ had better come up with something to occupy her talents before she resorts to highway robbery.

“If you really want to make a name for yourself by screwing Ozai over,” Sokka muses, nursing his bottle of mango black tea (served plain without added sugar, it’s _progress),_ “you could come join my detective agency.”

“Me? A brilliant metalbending lie-detector as a _detective?_ I thought you’d never ask.”

“...you could say it’s a groundbreaking idea.”

A clod of soil hurtles at his head.

/

Zuko lets Sokka into his life. Into all his lives. He invites Sokka to stay at the tea shop for dinner with his uncle, after closing.

(Though he’s broken into fifty-three top-secret criminal hideouts in his career, Sokka’s never dared hope for _this.)_

“Here,” says Uncle Iroh (and Sokka’s taking the title “Uncle” and sticking with it, even though they’re not officially related, not yet). “A caramel-orange cookie for each of you, to begin the meal. I would give you the lavender-ginger, but young lovers deserve something special and sweet-”

“We’re not young lovers!” Zuko protests.

Toph was right- Zuko really _is_ the worst liar on the planet.

“And,” Uncle Iroh adds as he pours the tea, not remotely disrupted by his nephew’s outburst, “we have my newest blend to accompany it. Some mixtures are muddied by confusion, but the chemistry of well-matched leaves can elevate a blend to once unthought clarity and strength.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, wilfully ignoring any and all symbolism. And really, Uncle Iroh probably just means to compliment their budding relationship.

But Sokka looks at his boyfriend (a prince, and a waiter, and an outlaw spirit all at the same time). He’s a blend of unlikely influences, elevated by alchemy to pure gold.

So Sokka raises his cup. “To Zuko.”

/

That night, Sokka comes home comfortably full, and though he drank nothing but tea he feels intoxicated by a lingering shadow, by the ghost of a kiss still smoldering on his lips. He crosses directly to his safe to stamp three of his case files “closed.” Then he takes a moment to gloat, because he doesn’t get to use that stamp very often. 

For old times’ sake he flicks through once more, skimming all the slivers of Zuko’s identities he’d so painstakingly collected. If he’s honest, he can’t risk compromising Zuko (no matter how unfairly graceful he is at his fire and his stabbing), and that means he can’t keep these files. Safes are looking a bit less uncrackable in a world with metalbending.

If he’s honest, he doesn’t need these slivers of Zuko anymore. Not when he has the whole story.

So Sokka digs up a lighter that he bought ages ago as part of the whole detective shtick, back before smoking’s health risks drove him to dramatic tea-drinking instead. He clicks it on. He lets all three files shrivel to ash. 

Though he stands in the darkness of a chilly Caldera night, this bright red flare warms him through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On rare occasions, real-life pistachios do spontaneously combust. Sokka is an expert on chemistry (of more than one kind, according to his adoring new boyfriend).

**Author's Note:**

> That’s all, folks! Thanks to everyone who’s supported this story <3


End file.
